Communications Minister Faith Muthambi was not concerned that free-to-air broadcaster e.tv’s impending legal challenge, over the provisions for a control system for government’s subsidised set-top boxes (STBs), would cause further delays to South Africa’s years-overdue digital terrestrial television (DTT) migration.

The Minister was addressing media prior to the delivery of her Budget Vote, on Wednesday, which focused largely on digital transition and media transformation.

In April, when Muthambi placed an 18-month deadline on the migration, the broadcaster took the matter to the Gauteng High Court to have aspects of the Broadcasting Digital Migration (BDM) policy reviewed.

It was not clear what impact the legal challenge would have on the project that still had no set digital switch-on and analogue switch-off dates.

In March, the DoC published the amended policy stipulating that the five-million government-subsidised STBs would contain a control system, which put to bed a two-year dispute, which was the latest in a series of delays to South Africa’s migration from analogue to digital broadcasting.

However, e.tv claimed that the subsidised STBs would not have the capability to encrypt broadcast signals and requested the provision wherein the STB control system was nonmandatory be amended.

South Africa, which would miss the International Telecommunications Union-stipulated digital migration deadline of June 17, was now “right on course” with digital migration, Muthambi said on Wednesday.